Talk about Inappropriate…

It’s always good to err on the side of sensitivity with costumes in mind./PHOTO VIA Flickr user vdrg dansschool

According to BuzzFeed, a woman identified as Alicia Ann Lynch posted photos of herself at work dressed up as a Boston Marathon bombing victim for Halloween on Twitter and Instagram. (In case you were wondering, no, she’s not from Massachusetts.) Needless to say, the backlash has been extreme.

I am fully on-board for funny, stupid Halloween costumes, after all, it’s about having fun. But, when someone takes an especially sensitive thing and turns it into a purely offensive mockery, I’m not okay with that.

Yet, there she is, smiling away at the so-called ‘hilarity’ of the joke she’s playing (but who is it meant for?). She clearly has no second thoughts about the costume and sees nothing wrong with it. In what way was this supposed to be funny? Maybe she forgot that people died, were brutally injured and lost loved ones; she may have forgotten, but Boston hasn’t.

In an e-mail to BuzzFeed, Lynch writes, “It seems as though my outfit was too soon, and will always be that way, it was wrong of me and very distasteful. My costume was not meant to disrespect anyone, ever. I am truly sorry to anyone that I may have offended or hurt with this.”

People like Lynch aren’t in need of brutality and death threats, they need to see the error of their ways and the cruelty that their actions inflict. Involving her family is just wrong: they are not her, she is an adult and is responsible for her own actions. They already have to deal with the fact that their daughter is under fire for what she did.